Watch your step

Man, I've been wanting to update this thing for over a week now, but it's been crazy and busy. First off last week I started by doing a MAJOR overhaul of my old resume. I was feeling pretty proud of it! Just as I was signing off AVG let me know that it found a virus. I told it to delete it and went to bed, deciding I would do a system restore first thing in the morning just to be safe.

Yeah. That didn't work out. Tried the system restore and it just made everything worse and soon I was getting blue screen of death. And this was AFTER spending 12 hours to let Mallyware Bites scan for 12 hours and found nothing and AVG running another scan for 4 and also finding nothing.

So I took my computer up to geek squad. They couldn't get rid of the virus, but for a 100 bucks they would try to save all my files. I left it with them and they said they'd call me in two or three days when it was done.

Okay - I really, REALLY need someone to show me how to cut a chicken. I bought a chicken that was cut in half and went: How hard could it be! It's already cut in half! That's the hard part isn't it?

That poor, dead, cold, lifeless bird. It didn't know what was coming. Never stood a chance. That was a lot harder than I thought it would be to cut into pieces. Although I have a feeling that it's because we don't really have the tools here to cut say... bone. It was me. My hands. And a sorry stake knife that wishes it was in someone else's home.

Was trying the orange chicken recipie today. Which dad I came to find out isn't thrilled about. He kept suggesting that HE could cook it for me. Yeah, manage to weasle out of him that he was nervous about the oranage part.

Ended up burning it just slightly, not bad as I like my chicken crispy, but it makes it hard to taste the oranage - so dad loves it. XD

I decided to offset the burntness by having a delicious mudslide on the side. Mmmmhmmm... Kahlua.

Also - I love my geeky friends. This is Sarah, the girl I worked with this summer at Burnham. I showed her the wonders of Dr. Horrible this summer. We use to sing this duet all the time while crusing around in the gaitor. Oh, and she plays a Ukulele!

Today was both long and short. Short because I've kept so busy, but long for how emotionally trying it was. It was the very last day I'll work at probably one of the best jobs I'll ever have. As much as I complain about it now and then - it's all mostly the idea of being forced to go somewhere when I could be doing other things. You know... work. I'll complain about not wanting to go to any job I'll ever had.

Oh, and the poop. I won't miss cleaning up the poop.

But funny thing about the bathrooms. For the past week we keep finding the same praying mantis on our bathroom walls and in the pipechase. (Little room between the bathrooms that we hold our bathroom supplies and where you turn the water on and off.) We tried to get it to fight us for a bit then move it to a bush - and yet every morning he'd be back on the bathroom walls or in the pipechase. I named it Deryl. XD He's very good at climbing on brooms. I'm going to miss Deryl.

Today was a lot different from last Labor Day. For starters I actually had help. Cory was there this year to give me a hand. We started the day taking care of all the end of season paperwork and then did a bunch of firepits. Finally got the last of the few straggelers out of the park by 1pm when we cleaned the bathrooms for the last time and locked them off. Must admit, it felt good to lock the bathroom knowing no one would be able to walk in seconds after I just finished. Yet... sad at the same time as it's like the final thing to do before shutting up the campground.

Took down all the signs we could. Brought in the bouy that was nice enough to break it's chain and float in to our shore. Put the cover on the outside sink and got ready to leave. The last thing we did was put our keys in the safe and lock ourselves out of the toll booth. I admit, I love that park. I nearly cried as I pulled out for the last time.

Got home and started to pack for camping, taking a break to take Egor on one of the shortest walks we've ever done. She's the worst she's ever been. I ended up bent over crying on her again. We're so close to camping and it's going to break my heart if she doesn't enjoy this because it's becoming clearer and clearer it's time to say goodbye. Dad caught me crying and I really hated it because I knew I couldn't handle a: It will be alright lie right then, but no, he did about the only thing I could handle. He came down and hugged me and just let me cry for a little bit saying he knew. It hurts, but it's just time, she's old. Which I appericated so much more than the lies we keep telling ourselves that it will be okay.

We eventually got her in, but you can tell it hurts her so. I really hope she enjoys this last trip, although I'm a little worried - I went to check to be sure that her rabies information is where I left it last - it was, but turns out it expired in April. Crap, we need that for camping. Hopefully I know a loop hole. If I bring in her tag in where it doesn't have an experation date on it and hopefully they won't question it - as honestly, we'll probably be putting her down in a week or two, she doesn't need the shoot now in her life.

I just want to camp and pretend I don't have this to come back home to.

Yes, think your dirty thoughts about my subject. That's the point! Indulge. But last night was amazing. I laid down fell just about instantly asleep and slept the entire night until my alarm woke me up. Which is weird. I pretty much always wake up a few minutes before it goes off. In fact it took me a bit to turn it off because in the dream it was just this annoying noise that wouldn't go away.

And I slept deep. No dreams that left me feeling stressed out and jittery. Just the good ol' fashion kind. I don't really remember them much right now, but I know one took place at the house.

Work went pretty good today, with only five days left we've gotten a bit lazy and I've been so utterly drained I haven't cared. To waste a bit of time we went to check on the geocache in our little park. There had been a family in earlier too look for it and it was their first geocache they had told and they seemed to have trouble finding it and had to keep coming back to us to ask for hints. So we wanted to go down and see if they had added a new name to the log that's in it.

We were shocked to find the cache missing. We're not sure if they took it not realizing how geocaching works (in that you take an item from it and leave an item; not take the whole thing.) or if they couldn't find it because someone had taken it before them. It was rather sad.

So to waste MORE time we went to the toll booth and took a tylonal bottle and made a new cache. Even put a couple of the lost and found items that have been in a drawer for years in it. XD Like a women's watch. We wrote: For Geocaching. Do not steal on it, but of course that will probably just want to make people want to steal it more.

As bad as things will be after the camping trip I'm really looking forward to the sitting around and doing nothing. I'm going to do my damnest to not think about the issue with the dog and my unemployment problems while out there. My body is sore and my brain only seems to be working half the time right now.

And usually - this would be the start of my days off. Except I'm working the next two days because I need to take Saturday and Sunday off for the wedding - which sucks because I won't get holiday pay for working Labor Day by not working the day before, but... oh well. I decided I'd still work that last day to give Cory a hand and to get at least 8 more hours of pay. Who knows? Maybe they'll screw up and give me holiday pay anyway.

God I hate being this tired right now. It makes my spelling worse and I tend to stutter. The suttering and lisping is the worse. It's so frustrating trying to get the word I mean out more so when I do it in front of my boss, but at least I know this is mostly from me being so worn out. I'm sure I'll be able to talk longer than a minute without tripping over myself when I get a good night's rest.

Speaking of a good night's rest. I wish I could figure out why I've been having trouble sleeping. If I'm napping I'm asleep once I hit the pillow and it's a struggle to get up after an hour or two. But sleeping at night recently it takes forever and I don't usually sleep all night long. I wake up after a couple hours several times. I also have been having trouble with dreams mixing with reality - which is hard to tell if I'm dreaming or sleeping. Or well, half the time I'm dreaming, but think I'm awake - which usually when I wake up leaves me feeling even more tired. So, we shall see.

Sometimes I have little moments in my life that remind me just how much of a dork I really am. Like finally finding my little Nintendo DS keychain that holds all my good DS games (Aka - all but two of them. Those two both being brain age. 8D) grabbing it while laughing like a mad women and then holding up over my head and going: DODODODODOOOOOOO!

Aaaaaah-ha.

ANYWAY! Yes. Been busy. People are work stupid as always. Let me tell you a bit about it.

Dear campers. When I tell you something it's okay to ask me to tell you again for clarification. Heck I don't mind even saying it twice so your crushed dreams of finding a campsite can be set in stone for you. HOWEVER asking me the same damn question forty times will not get you a different answer. When I tell you - no, we are 100% booked this weekend you can't stay does not mean a magical campsite will suddenly be created just for you.

Like these people from Vermont. They had called two days earlier asking about campsites. I warned them that this was French Festival weekend. We had ONE site still left open and it was likely to be filled by the end of the day. Which is was, and not by them. So I don’t know why she was so surprised when they pulled in two days later to find out we had one site left, but it was for only one night. Oh - and it was eclectic and they didn’t want electric.

“But you said site 48 was open!”

Yes. Two days ago. I also told you it would probably be gone by the end of the day. So after over an HOUR of: Well, what else is open? What do you mean you don’t have anything else? But you USE to! (She really said that) What about that site there? Is anyone on that? Yes? Are you sure they’re coming? You really don’t have anything else? She finally settled into taking that spot.

Honestly... it's not so much I hate this song - actually my least favorite song is probably a rap song. I really don't like newer rap, but I can't think of any. So here is one I can't stand to hear anymore and change the radio station when I hear it come on.

Today near the end of our shift Sarah and I had to put a few bouyies out at the end of the dock so boaters know where some deadly rocks are. Yeah, except you know how bouys stay in place? Huge fucking heavy cynderblocks. So we dragged this one that I swear weighed over 100 pounds to the end of the dock then had happy fun times TOSSING it over the side praying it landed on the craddle where the rocks are because if we didn't get it over far enough it would land in this large drop off and then we'd be screwed.

Luckily it didn't! So then we had to jump in and drag it to the end of the craddle where the rocks are. Yup. Just jump into the St. Lawrence river. You know... the river that never warms up. Yeah, took some talking over. A lot of - you first, no you first. No you! Let's go together! *stares at each other* I don't trust you to actually jump with me. Finally I just said screw it. Took a few steps back and ran for the edge yelling: COOOOOOOOOOWARD!!! as I went.

I heard Sarah yell: Oh ZZ! You- before my head went under. I'm glad at the last second I decided to plug my nose with my hand (which I don't usually do) because I hit the water giggling and then gasping. It was freezing!. But yeah, took in more water than I'm proud to admit I did. Came up laughing and giggling to find Sarah had followed me in. After we both got out the: OMG COLD!? Sarah told me what she had said was: Oh ZZ! You bastard!

And then I told her I hated her. Why were we doing this again? Oh yeah, deadly rocks. Then there was much giggling and snickering as we pulled ourselves and the GIANT cynderblock through the seaweed to it's proper spot. We had one scary moment where we thought it was going off a drop off, but we managed to roll it back. Then we got to swim out and go over to the other dock to put the other bouy in. I had a bit of a problem getting out as I couldn't find my swimsuit last night so I was doing this in my work clothes and my jeans were SO heavy. But I had found water shoes.

Sarah took them and did the next part as I watched. We had lighter cynderblocks in from last year for this bouy so she could get it by herself and would have been awkward with two people. There was one point where she almost lost THAT one to a drop off and actually went under for awhile struggling with it. I stood there going: Uh, she'd drop it if she had to right? ...right? Sarah? Uh... SARAH!? But she got it back up and on the right spot.

Once that was in place I jumped in with the next bouy and swam it over and tried to hold it in place as she tied the chain around. Easier said then done with the boats flying by causing huge waves. More giggling, but we got it. So then we got to swim back around to the dock and climb out again. As we headed back in we noticed two figures standing next to our gator - but we're both blind without our glasses. So we couldn't tell who it was. When we were close enough to yell without being obxious we found out it was the Hick's Ice guys. XD Did we feel odd standing there dripping wet.

Either way, we got it done and feel pretty proud of ourselves. I should take pictures soon to show just what we were dealing with. It was not easy, but it was fun all the same. I forgot how much I love swimming. I should do it again sometime when I actually have a swimsuit on so I don't have to keep pulling my pants up.

Okay, technically, not my fault. I told Sarah I thought the ashes were too hot when we were cleaning up fire pits, but when she shrugged I put it in anyway. Then she went to weedwack an incoming site and I went to finish up the fire pits. Two pits later I was throwing in ash when - oh, hello flame!

Oh… wait. Fire. Fire bad. And there is a large chunk of wood under it. I should put that out. Dumped my bucket of garbage out into the pit I just finished cleaning. Hurried to the closest water spicket and filled the bucket with water before dumping it on the flames.

Whoopes.

I did say I like this job because I never know what will happen day to day.

I'm so tired now I can feel sleep creepying up everytime I blink my eyes. And it seems that each blink is getting longer and longer. This morning sucked so hard. I know I got sleep, but how much I'm not sure. It wasn't the amount my body wanted that's for sure. I kept waking up all night long feeling anixious for no real reason. I have nothing I'm feeling overly anixious about. I wasn't dreading work. I just felt all jittery and jumpy.

Then my pets woke me up at 5:20am. Fourty minutes before my first alarm would have gone off. Got up and let the dog out to go to the bathroom and fed the cat. Who had knocked my glasses off the night stand while waiting for me to return. After finally locating them because I can never feel at ease when I don't know where my glasses are it was 5:30. I debated going back to bed, but knew by the time I got settled in and finally fell asleep it probably wouldn't be worth it. So I got my cat a second helping instead.

Regretted that decision. Because I started to feel sick not too long after and I was sure it was from being over tired. Ended up being sick. Well - kinda sick. As I had nothing to offer up from my stomach. But it reminded me how much I do like this job I have and the person I work with. As normally throwing up is when I throw in the towel and call in sick to work, but I really didn't want to to that. I knew the sickness would pass and I didn't want to leave Sarah all alone at the park.

I'm glad I went in the end. After a bit of toast and apple juice I felt a bit better and managed to get my ass to work. It was a fairly easy day as it was kinda cold out. Didn't even reach 60F (15C) and Sarah and I spent most of the day just trying to stay warm as it was also raining lightly out. So we worked a bit on the waterfront - cleaning up garabage and cleaning out the few firepits we had. Sarah had a surprised though. Some of the trash people left on their site was a Catholic newspaper. As we were thumbing through it making jokes she suddenly spotted a picture of her friend. Then when there was a bit of a break in the weather we pushed mowed three campsites before the rain came back. The grass was already wet, heavy, and way too long so we gave up on mowing and raked up the mess of grass.

The very last thing we did was spilt up. I cleaned bathrooms and she did some qucik weedeating on an incoming site. A fairly easy day and tomorrow it's suppose to rain again and as we're pretty much caught up on everything except mowing... it will probably be a slow day again.

Oh, we also fixed the seat on the gator during a down pour. It wasn't attached to anything so we found some screws and managed to fix it. Too bad it then got a flat tire. Opps.

Well, that entry ate up some time before bed. Let's see if I can focus on that AMV a bit more without passing out again.

Starting July 1st the State Park Employees will be returning to their usual 40 schedauled work hours. (Instead of the 37.5 we've been working)

AND!

Starting July 1st Zig-zag will be upgraded from a PK1 status to a PK2 which means....

RAISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSE! RAISE FOR ME!!

*GLEE!* Sarah said she stratled our boss this morning when he was telling her about our hours going back to normal when he mentioned: "How do you feel about us upgrading Zig-zag to a PK2? Think she deserves it?" And she shouted: ABSOLUTELY! At him because she says I'm one of the only workers there she never has to worry about. I know what I'm doing. I do it. And I do it was well as I can without slacking. She never has to worry about me and I'm always ready to help her out. *glee!* RAISE! I'm not sure how much of a raise, but considering I get at least a 15cent raise everytime I return for the summer it won't be something to sneeze at seeing as I'm now being promoted to the next level up.

So yeah. Wanted to post some pictures but got busy and just haven't had time to. Started my summer job at the state parks three days ago. It's been great to see Sarah again. But the first day all I did was weedwack and was pretty much dead afterwards. Autumn came over and we hung out and watched some Deadlest Catch until I has to go pass out.

Then the next day was more weedwacking and tree pruning so they wouldn't be attacking people's RVs. Oh - and lifting heavy ass logs that were chopped down earlier. My arms were so very dead afterwards. Oh so dead I could hardly lift my car keys at the end of the day. Came home then rushed back up to the city with Autumn because I needed things. Got groceries, a new pair of headphones, food for my dad, and I also bought new headphones. We also hit Borders first as we had coupons. We walked in and the worker at the counter laughed and said: either I play too much Zelda or that socority plays too much because that shirt looks so much like a triforce. XD Which it was! I explained the APO is actually a fraturnity being co-ed and then we got talking about books. He totally talked Autumn into getting a batman comic. He was super nice and it's so refreshing to find other geeks in the area. We're so few and far between.

After all that running around I went to dinner with mom at a place called Roxy's which is a 100 year old resturant/bar/hotel that is being closed soon for renavations and isn't going to be open for a long time. Mom and I went because we've never been. It was a really nice place and I loved my veal. Mom told me we use to have veal all the time when we lived in the tralier and that's probably why I love it so much.

And then today was a full day of cleaning bathrooms. Which means a rain of dead bugs and spiders raining down on my head. Gross but my body didn't hurt as bad. Was so tired when I got home that I just passed out. Ugh. After three days of nothing but non-stop manual labor and then rushing and hanging out I'm mentally and emotionally wipped out. So ready for bed. *passes out*

While I was on my two day break Cedar snuck down to my camp and put in an ice cream freezer. So we now sell pre-packaged ice cream.

At first I was excited. Ice cream at work? Hells yeah. On a hot day this was going to be sweet. XD In more ways then one! Until I realized what it also included... like how everything ended in weird numbers. Like... 2.19, 1.17 and such. So instead of working with bills and quarters we've now been thrown nickles, dimes, and pennies. Ew. Pennies. I liked it so much better when everything ended in 5s and 0s.

Not to mention I got this group of girls in who were super excited over the icecream. They kept coming up and going: I want this! So I'd plug the price into the calculator but when I looked up they were changing their minds. Gah.

Then they kept squirming around with their icecream so it became difficult to figure who had what and what did they take. How much each cost and gah. A mess. How annoying.

I think it would be easier if I could just add everything up on my register. But nooooooooooo. I can only punch in one ice cream at a time. I can't ring up more than one ice cream at a time. I have to hit. 1.52 + tax + NTH (which tells the register I'm selling an ice cream) = total. And do that over and over for each one I sell. It's frustrating.

Then I had this one guy who I call Needy Camper come buy ice cream. And yes... he's a VERY needy camper. Can't seem to be happy with anything. Wanted some branches cut down. We cut them down. They claimed they were happy. But next day we had to climb back up to cut more down. Then he needed an air pump. A huge ass air pump that weighs a ton and I had to drag it across the camp for him. And just gah.

So he came and bought five bars of ice cream with his wife. After I gave them their change he asked if I had a bag. I said that I was sorry but I didn't. I guess that was something they overlooked to give us when they brought the ice cream. Then he wanted a box. He started poking around the office looking for a box. I hate it when people invade my work space. Yes. You're allowed in the toll both but not under the god damn register. SHOO!

I said I was sorry but all of our boxes have stuff in it so. No. He couldn't have one. So he asked if I could empty one of the boxes holding a mountain of fliers for the parks so he could have that. -_- No, they'd be fliers everywhere. Dude. You live two feet away. You'll be FINE getting there. Which his wife finally talked him into understanding. And I watched them they had NO problem getting there. With his wife carrying two and him three. Was that really that hard?

Work was intersting today. It was really cold and windy so Sarah and I honestly didn't feel like doing too much. So we did some weedwacking and racking of stuff that would be dangerous to weedwack over. Then we had lunch. After that we were going to start up what we had been doing again but it was just so cold we hid out in our garage for awhile.

Finally we decided to have a little fun instead. We took some saws to go cut up a fallen tree - nothing we HAD to do - it was something that would eventually need to be done. Just there were other things we should have done but that was more fun. And we were having fun cutting it. Something really satisfying to cut through the other side!

After we had a couple small pieces cut I loaded up a load in our gator to take to our dump area. It was REALLY blowing. One of the tents that was one a site I could see was about to lose their tarp and the waves were crashing over our docks so it was blowing really hard out. I started to drive back to Sarah to pick up the next load and on my way I noticed one of our trees leaning slightly. But it's always kinda leaning so I didn't think much more after that.

So this morning I got up at 5:40am to go to yard sales with mom. Didn't find anything except for a bottle of body lotion I really enjoyed the smell of. Mom found a few things though. Came home in time to change and run off to work.

Work was pretty good. Rained a bit off and on but I kinda liked it - meant I didn't have to mow or weed wack. We just worked mostly on cleaning out fire pits which wasn't so bad when it's wet because when ashes are dry and it's windy they blow everywhere. Still annoyingly messy, but not as bad when it's wet and clumps together.

The park is pretty much empty. Only four campsites rented out - which I actually like better than when it's busy. Mostly because we don't have to do bathrooms as much because people aren't using them so much.

Just before Sarah's shift ended we drove back down to where the geocach is hidden and I put my Australian coins in it and signed my name to the list. It was probably more exciting than it should have been for me. I really need to get a GPS so I can spend a day looking for more. I love treasure hunts!

After work and I was driving home I found myself thinking of Mooshy again. I don't know why but I tend to think of him most of my ride home from work. Probably because I get to thinking about being home with the cat and such and it's a nagging thought in the back of my mind that there's a loved one missing at home. But while I was thinking I toyed with the thought: Wouldn't it be horrible if I hit a squirrle or something on the way home? To remind me even more of Mooshy on top of feeling horrible for hitting one? Well... I was quit shocked when a few minutes after thinking that I found myself surving out of the way as a squirrle ran out in front of me. I didn't hit it thank god but it sure scared the hell out of me.

Now I'm just happy to be home and can't wait for Dad's tuna noodle casaroll to get done so that I may devour it. *licks lips* Heh. Something tells me I'll be passing out early tonight. Zig-zag verrrrrrrrrrrrrry sleep.

So there is now a geocash at Burnham Point State Park. It's not registered at the offical site yet apparently you need a permit to leave one at a State Park. We've already been told that it can stay and we're just waiting on the paper work.

Sarah didn't know what a geocash was so I explained about how it's like a treasure hunt all over the world. Then we just had to run out to where they said it was suppose to be to see if we could find it. I was the one to spot it. Hidden in a hallow stump under a brick. It was even more exciting when I realized the paper they had left as a log was pratically made by me.

Two young girls had come up over the weekend and asked for some paper. So I gave them a few sheets of printer paper. Not long after they came back up with the paper cut into long strips and asked me to staple it at the top so I did. It was quite exciting to see it in their hiding place.

What they placed in it was 10 dollars. We didn't take it as we felt we kinda cheated having known where it was hidden. I'm just super excited to add something to the hiding place and adding my name to the log. I've decided I'm going to put some of the extra Australian money I have from my trip into it.

It's quiet exciting. Everytime we drove past the hiding spot we giggled to each other and couldn't help talk about ideas of what to add to it.

I'm going to TRY to not touch it again until the last day I work. To see if anyone has found it. Hopefully no one will steal it. It's not in an overly GREAT spot - but I don't think it's an overly bad spot either.

Makes me wish once again that I had a GPS because I LOVED the rush of looking for it and the excitment of actually finding it.